Clayton Christensen Quotes

The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.

We are not inferring design to account for a black box, but to account for an open box.

I am always fascinated by the structure of things; why do things work this way and not that way.

As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.

I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause.

My feeling is that scientific method has the power to account for and interlink all phenomena in the universe, including its origin, using the laws of nature. But that still leaves the laws unexplained.

I tend to approach things from a physics framework. And physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy.

It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory.

Anecdotal thinking comes naturally; science requires training.

A fact is like a sack - it won't stand up if it's empty. To make it stand up, first you have to put in it all the reasons and feelings that caused it in the first place.

Indeed, every true science has for its object the determination of certain phenomena by means of others, in accordance with the relations which exist between them.

If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.

But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.

The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

The scientist's inquiry into the causes of things is providing an ever more extensive understanding of nature.

You must acquire something of that industrious habit of mind which the study of natural science gives,—the art of comparing, of perceiving true likenesses and true differences, and so of classifying and arranging what you see; the art of connecting facts together in your mind in cause and effect

Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities.

Sometimes we look at patterns, and we look at things that are happening, and sometimes you can't dismiss everything as a conspiracy.

Physics is a good framework for thinking. ... Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.

All scientists should be skeptics. The reason why is that, even with the best of scientific measurements, we can come up with all kinds of explanations of what those measurements mean in terms of cause and effect, and yet most of those explanations are wrong. It's really easy to be wrong in science ... it's really hard to be right.

The man of science dissects the statement, verifies the facts, and demonstrates connection even where he cannot its purpose.

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

Geometry is beautifully logical, and it teaches you how to think and prove that things are so, step by step by step. Proofs are excellent lessons in reasoning. Without logic and reasoning, you are dependent on jumping to conclusions or - worse - having empty opinions.

There can no great smoke arise, but there must be some fire.